Louisa rebuilds two schools

Superintendent Dr. Deborah Pettit and longtime educator Eugenia Bumpass break ground together on the new Louisa County High School.

The CV’s pick for 2013’s top story

Though it’s a saga that originated from the Mineral Earthquake of 2011, the ongoing construction at the sites of Louisa County High School and Thomas Jefferson Elementary School has dominated the headlines of The Central Virginian in 2013. It’s an ongoing narrative that has taken the community from a scene of rubble to a resurrected resurgence.

Though many people in Louisa have had some sort of rebuilding project since the 5.8 magnitude earthquake, the community’s fortitude and aura of progress seems to be perfectly encapsulated with the laying of each brick and the rising of every beam on the sites of the two schools.

Progress on the new $11 million, 85,000-square-foot TJES remains “on schedule,” according to Doug Straley, assistant superintendant for administration at Louisa County Public Schools, despite the fact that the project’s original architect, Rancorn Wildman, alerted school officials that the company was filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Tuesday, Oct. 1.

The Louisa County School Board subsequently replaced Wildman with senior architect Jack Clark, and the project’s original completion date of May 31, 2014 has remained unchanged.

“We were far enough along with this process,” LCPS Director of Facilities David Szalankiewicz said. “All of the major issues had already been addressed, so it hasn’t hindered us much at all.”

The building’s structural ascent is apparent to anyone who drives by the campus on Jefferson Highway. The front of the 750-student school is already largely complete, and most of the remaining work centers on electrical wiring and cosmetic appeal.

To read the entire story, see the Jan. 2 edition of The Central Virginian.